Sarina and I both fell in love from afar with these tiny little potatoes from Olsen Farms. We spotted them from a few booths away at the farmer's market, and even though we have several rows of potatoes growing at home, we had to have them. I know it …

Everything but the salt and olive oil was local on this one. Purple Viking potatoes and Purple Cherokee tomatoes from our backyard, chili de arbol from Alvarez farm, onions from the farmer's market, and crowned with eggs from my friend Dan's backyard chickens.

While we are on a roll with the pastry crusts, let's not forget the wonderful savory possibilities! For this one I used the exact same crust as last week's crostata, but baked it in a tart pan and filled it with a tasty aged provolone, Purple Cherokee and Sungold tomatoes and basil.

Slow roasting tomatoes is alchemy. You put base metal in the oven and a few hours later, you've got gold. In this case, we had a pile of Early Girls that had my rapt attention throughout July as they hurtled towards ripeness. But when they arrived, they were… kind of bland. I knew the Purple …

Crostata: pie without the fuss. With a pie (or tart), it can be hard to make one as pretty as the picture I have in my mind, either cooling on Grandma's window sill or on the cover of Gourmet. Crostata takes my inability to make a precise pie and makes a rustic …

In the course of planning an Italian-oriented meal, it occurred to me that an arrabiata sauce has mostly the same ingredients that you would associate with a fresh Mexican-style salsa. Traditional arrabiata contains onion, garlic, tomatoes and fresh chili peppers. "Arrabiata" means "angry", referring to the heat from the chilis.